Movie Making
by sunflower1997
Summary: Dream I had involving the cast of the Mantime Podcast, three of my friends (unnamed) and Ciaran O'Brian (cameraman). Super sad and sappy. I cried when I woke up and I cried writing it down. Don't freaking judge me! *CHARACTERIZATION IS SHIT SHUT UP ABOUT IT*


(THIS IS A DREAM I HAD A COUPLE DAYS AGO. IT'S WHERE SOME OF MY FAVORITE YOUTUBERS AND A COUPLE FRIENDS AND I ARE TRYING TO MAKE MY CURRENTLY UNFINISHED BOOKS INTO A MOVIE TRILOGY. I DO NOT KNOW THE YOUTUBERS IN THIS, NOR DO I CLAIM TO. BEWARE: THERE ARE A LOT OF MISTAKES INVOLVING CHARACTERIZATION OF JACOB TRUEMAN IN THIS! PLUS IT SAYS HE IS DATING ME WHICH HE IS _EVER_ SO CLEARLY _NOT!_ HOPE YOU LIKE IT! READ ON!)

Jacob answered the phone. "Hello?" he said. I sighed, heart heavy and cold beneath my ribs.

"I need you to grab your brother and Jack and Dean," I sighed. "I got Ciaran. I need you all here at five. It's about the movies."

He paused. I knew he could hear it in my voice but he didn't say anything, knowing me too well. I had _called_ him. I never _called_ unless it was bad. "Okay, see you at five." I prayed a silent thanks for the click on the other end of the phone. As my hand fell to the desk, looking for the next contact, the paper on the desk caught my attention again. Anger and confusion leapt inside me. Except I wasn't confused. At all. I knew _exactly_ what had happened. I yelled and flung everything off my desk. The lamp toppled to the floor. Shards of warm glass from the shattered bulb scattered over the papers and pens. I cussed loudly and checked for any hot pieces.

A sliver caught in my palm and I yelled again. I grit my teeth and pulled it out. A few drops of crimson blood spiraled to the ground. I watched them with hard, cold eyes. I could hear them patter onto paper. Onto the fucking script. That word hurt somewhere deep inside me. Cold, angry grief welled again. I stood up and walked to the bathroom, my intent washing the blood from my hand. Instead, when I made it inside, my back hit the door and I slid to the ground, watching the blood pool in my cupped palm. After a while it slowed and ultimately stopped. The edges and top of the tiny puddle dried. There was a knock on my front door. Whoever it was came in after a few seconds. Footsteps sounded. They slowed near the desk.

"Morgan?" Jacob called. Fuck. I told him where I keep the spare key. Oh wait. It was Jacob. I had given him a key a long time ago. The door had been open anyways. He shook me back to the present, knocking on the door I was leaning against. "Morgan?" he called again, quieter.

"Coming," I said. I stood up and washed the blood away, cringing at the sting of soap. I felt queasy. A Band-Aid found its way onto my hand, covering any remnants of the stopped bleeding. My hands somehow splashed water onto my face and I looked up into the mirror. My gray-blue eyes were red and my frizzy blonde hair was a mess. My normally pale skin was sickly gray-green. I cursed this day. This script. This movie. Tears welled up again but I choked down the pain in my throat. I _refused_ to cry in front of him, in front of anyone. Once I had my emotions under control, I dried my face and walked into the other room. Jacob was waiting beside the papers. He picked up the cover page of my copy of the final script, then the front cover of my first draft of the script… then the paper that burned my eyes. Shit, Morgan, get it together. I took the papers from him. They all had blood on them. One drop each. One drop was dotting an i on the draft. Another blacking out my middle initial. The final replacing an O on that dreaded paper. I opened the bin beside my desk. The crumpled papers inside beckoned the ones in my hand, which were prepared to be angrily thrown away. I paused.

This script… It was my life. Seven years. Countless hours of thinking. Heartbreak at every little imagined twist ending. Laughs at every fun part. The only link left to my home in America, which I had left a year ago now. I remembered the first sentence I had written in England: the smell, the _sound_ of it. And that's when the Mantime Podcast crew filed into the cafe and I almost flipped the table. I laughed and blushed in embarrassment even now at my stuttering and the wiping up of the coffee I had spilled near my laptop. Jack had run over to grab it, lifting it out of the way of the coffee with a shout of victory. My background had showed, my drawing for the cover of the book I was currently on page 224 of. All of them saw. Jacob made a comment about it. That's how the conversation began.

The months I had been around them, I always felt like a tag-along on some amazing social journey, when in reality all they were doing was being friends. They took turns inviting me to the cinema with the group until Jacob started being the only one to ask me. I guess everyone knew from the start that we would end up together. When I had no money they would make me catch popcorn or skittles. One catch would land me a candy bar or soda, so I became a master. They asked about the story on a regular basis, but nobody ever read it while I was writing, for which I was quite thankful to tell the truth. If any of them had gotten really interested, they would've been disappointed with all the changes I kept making. Anybody can get sick of rereading a rephrased part.

A couple of them said they would try to read it once it was fully done. That's when I told them it was a trilogy. Jokes. Oh, so many jokes. I earned the nickname Tolkien for a time. That sputtered and died. It was the first time I had gotten a nickname and I was proud of it when I had it. Then it was done. Dan read it. I suggested we make it into a movie. But the effects? It was a sci-fi after all? I could do that. Money? Nonsense. I could surely pay for it by myself. Besides, we're YouTubers, we have equipment. Actors? If Dan could wait for a second movie, he would get a main part, and I really thought he fit. My three friends could have the main parts of the first movie beside me. The characters were based off of them anyways. I drafted scripts. Revision. Final draft. It did usually only take two for me.

I shook myself back into the present again. I sorted through the papers in my hand, throwing away that dreaded paper and trying to get the blood off of the other two. I cursed my bad luck and put them back onto the desk. I half-glanced over my shoulder. Jacob was watching me carefully. "I have to call Bown and the girls," I mumbled. He nodded in my peripheral. He knew I wasn't in the mood to talk and I was pretty sure he knew why, or had at least guessed. Whatever he did or didn't know, he kept quiet as I called the four people I needed to.

Jacob probably knew me better than anyone else in the group besides the girls. He had asked me on a proper date a couple months after I had come to the U.K. It was the best relationship I had ever had. He surprised me with random sweet texts and rants, phrased the way that he knew made me giggle, and he sent me messages of songs and albums I should search. I gave him the drawings I drew that I hated but he liked. He kept them like they were made of gold, even though most of them were mediocre at best compared to my best works. He was good to me and I tried to be good to him, even though I was a bit thick at times. He knew my favorite thing was when he hugged me and let me bury my face in his shoulder, even when I wasn't upset, so that's what he did and let me do.

I said nothing as Jacob swept the glass into the trash bin. It was four o'clock. I curled up at one end of my couch, Jacob joining me and wrapping his arm around me. He pulled me in close and rested his forehead against the side of my head.

"You're early," I muttered, closing my eyes and cherishing the heat flowing off of him in waves.

"Fashionably," he replied, taking my hand in his own. He paused, inspecting my cold, pale fingers. Now he knew exactly how upset I was. I was always freezing when I was upset or tired. He twined his fingers with mine and kissed my temple. I leaned into him, closing my eyes and sighing. I knew he wanted to ask me what was wrong. I knew he wanted to know before anyone else. I owed him that and I knew it. But both of us knew that if I started telling him now I would start crying too hard to talk. I needed more people. Not just him. I couldn't face that. Not him.

Five o'clock rolled around. Dean and Jack were the first to arrive, then Dan. Bown. Ciaran with his camera and mic. Mike and the girls came in last, talking and laughing loudly. Everyone paused their conversations whenever the door shut for the final time. Ciaran moved to set up the camera where I nodded at. I stood up and looked up at Jacob. He still looked sad and slightly confused. He held my hand until I moved far enough away that he had to grudgingly let go. Mike looked confused at the way I was acting. Everyone else stared at me with a look of curiosity. I didn't look at the three girls, who had been involved and addicted from the beginning. I didn't look at Mike or Dean, other actors for two smaller parts, who were also helping with lighting. I didn't look at Ciaran or Bown, the directors. I averted my eyes from the one pinned as my long-lost brother from the very beginning and the one playing the teacher, Jack. I didn't look at Dan, who had read and re-read the book to try and get a better feel for his character. This meant as much to him as it did to me, if not more. He had done so much for this. I kept my eyes firmly fixed away from Jacob. I knew that when I said this his disappointment would blind me with emotion. I couldn't stand to see that from him. Not while I was talking. Ciaran pointed at me. The red light on the camera came on. My mind froze.

Funny. Something once so warm and comforting was now cold and lifeless, gazing at me with judgment written in the inanimate eye. That camera was the same one that had filmed so many scenes of the movie. Through that camera lens, I could see all the fans who had been waiting for announcements and uploads of the different parts. I had really stepped up my game-face when editing in the effects and animations. It looked almost real now. Professional. Those shining faces. They were peering through that lens at me and usually I couldn't stop smiling. I couldn't wait to please them. Things change, though. Now I didn't see those faces. Now, somewhere inside me, it clicked. It was just a camera. We didn't bring it joy. We didn't allow it to watch our masterpiece. I didn't spend my hard-earned money so the _camera_ could watch amazing effects I had painstakingly worked on for days on end. I didn't do my best acting for that camera. I didn't force myself to cry my eyes out over a friend's 'dead body' for that thing on the tripod. I had lost myself in the acting to the point where Jacob could hardly get me out, not for that camera, but for those people, all those fans. But I couldn't see them anymore. It was just a camera. Now, I guess I knew.

"As many of you may know," I began, "my friends and I have been making my book series into a movie trilogy." I paused, closing my mouth and clamping my jaw for a moment. I detached my feelings as best I could. I took a deep breath in and continued. "But, we here who have worked so long and hard for this… regret to inform you… There will be no more." Silence met me. I almost caved. I almost looked back at Jacob, but I knew he had guessed. He was far from stupid. He would've guessed from my face and actions, even if he hadn't read the paper. "In hindsight, I realize that I spent too much time and money on this project. I can ask no more of my friends than what they have given me. This was my dream, never theirs, and I will not allow them to continue, because… because I…" I took a deep breath again, struggling not so much for words, but strength. "Because I am moving back to America." I looked back at my friends and the YouTubers I had never felt I fit with. I spoke to them now. "It was a fool's dream, to think I could ever live here on my own. I'm sorry." Jacob's face was filled with shock, borderline horror. I blinked back tears. I had let him down so much. So much… My blue eyes met the black eye in front of me. The red light blinked menacingly. "I have been evicted from my apartment and my mother is coming to help me go back to America."

I didn't say it. I didn't say home. Because no matter how much I felt at ease there in that white house between sweeping golden corn- and bean-fields, it would never compare. No matter how misplaced I felt with these people who I had admired for so long, they were my friends, and he was the one I had loved most out of anyone in the world. I could never… I _would_ never… It was then I realized I had simply been silent, and that there were now a few drops running down my cheeks. I wiped them away blindly. The Band-Aid stretched on my palm, and, holding onto the pain beneath it rather than in my heart and throat, I continued. "I want to thank all the fans and everyone who helped with production for all your support. This isn't how any of us wanted this to end. You all must know how Dan and I have been working on a theme for the end credits. Well, we wrote one. We finished the final recording the day before I got my eviction notice, but… I want to sing it with Dan live for you all. Mike, would you mind playing for us? The music is on the floor beside it."

I gestured numbly at the guitar on the stand in the corner. The other Trueman twin went to it and carefully picked them up, glancing at me as he did so. He walked over and sat down on a stool he pulled up from the counter. Dan took his place beside me, laying a hand briefly on my shoulder. I stayed silent and looking at the floor as the man with the guitar set up the music. Dan tapped his foot to set the beat when I gave my tiny nod. Mike started playing, carefully. The tune, unfamiliar to him, was a little off, but it sounded perfect to me. Even with my need to not feel, it still hurt when Dan hummed his first notes. It was a harmony. I looked up at Jacob, begging him to make me stop before I broke myself. He blinked sadly at me but didn't move. I had to do this. My final tribute. I raised my broken voice beside Dan's.

"When we were young

It was too late

I knew that I needed you

When my world went dark

And when I tripped

And fell

You stayed

To guide me back home

I'm home now today

My friends

Help me win this fight

Don't let me die

I hope to save you

You are my only home

Stay with me

Stay through the fight

My only hope

Until Sun's first light

My Moon

My Dusk

My Dawn

All my sunset

To my sunrise

Guide me home-"

I shattered. My voice broke and the tears blurring my vision fell. I left Dan singing and Mike playing in front of the camera, ducking away from everyone and into my room, covering my mouth in a vain attempt to hide the sobs of grief. I could feel this like a thorn in my heart, a poisoned thorn threatening to kill me. I felt it just might. I went to the opposite wall of my room, not bothering to close the door behind me. Hate aimed at myself burned inside me, mixing thoroughly with the unbearable sadness creeping out from my heart. It was my fault. _Mine_. Nobody else's. Just mine.

I heard the door click shut. Soft footsteps sounded behind me. Jacob was behind me, hands finding my upper arms. I let him lean me back into his chest, though I kept my face covered. "Jacob, I'm sorry," I sobbed quietly. More harsh sobs racked my body and I turned to him. My nose buried in his shirt. His arms wrapped over my shoulders and across my back, pulling me tightly to him. "I'm sorry," I repeated again and again, knowing it wouldn't ever be enough. Jacob shushed me.

"It's okay," he murmured, resting his cheek against my head. "When you…" He stopped. He couldn't think of anything. Nothing to make me feel better. He wouldn't leave the country for me. I couldn't move back for probably years to come. We could talk and text for a while, but for how long could we keep up the charade? This was it. This was goodbye. It was over.

"Don't leave me," I begged. "I lost the movie, I lost the script, and I lost them; let me hold onto you for one more night. Please, Jacob. Please don't leave me. Not now." He held me tighter to him, shifting forward to engulf me. It felt like he was trying to protect me from the world.

"I don't want to," he whispered. "I won't. I promise. Not tonight."

"Jacob?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you." The first time I had told him outright.

He chuckled a little, hugging me tighter. "I know," he said. "I love you too."

FIN

(SORRY GUYS, I KNOW THE LAST PART IS REALLY SAPPY! I HOPE YOU LIKED IT THOUGH! LEAVE OPINIONS BELOW!)


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